[F/GO] NP Gain + Star Gen Comparisons

*Update: It seems that I misunderstood when asking around and the current meta isn’t pure Arts sustain but a hybrid Buster burst with Arts sustain support. Since there aren’t any notable Quick supports on the same level as the current Buster supports, this would make it very difficult for a Quick-NP team to compete unless you have the best servants and CEs of respective categories (even then, someone would have to test it out and do a more in depth damage comparison). So until a new Quick support servant is introduced, this is just all theorycrafting.*

Fast forward to now, two weeks before the F/GO NA release. As a person who had always planned on reading the story translations but never got around to it, my interest in the game has somewhat returned. So I poked around and asked around and was unsurprised to learn that the meta has changed, mostly due the break bar new mechanics. Rather than fast Buster damage or turn 3 NPs, the new metagame revolves around Arts teams and long sustained fights. To me though, this is the exact opposite of my old Team Basakas and I can definitely imagine myself getting bored of 20-turn battles. So I started theorycrafting a bit. If on one end is the Buster burst teams and the other end is Arts sustain teams, what about a middle ground?

I had [previously determined](https://www.reddit.com/r/grandorder/comments/3wdv7c/team_damage_comparisons_buster_vs_arts_vs_quick/) that both Quick teams and Crit teams are extremely weak compared to even most Arts teams, but what about a Quick-NP team? A crit Quick does more damage than a non-crit Arts, and could potentially generate NP almost as fast (since crits double NP gain). Quick servants also tend to have stronger NPs than Arts servants, which mostly fall in the Caster class (with their low attack stats and 0.9x base multiplier). They don’t have the long term sustain that Arts teams have, but they can take more hits than Berserker teams and, if set up properly, they could deal consistently large bursts of damage in the form of crits and NPs to take down bosses with break bars. Servants like Jack and Okita are not only able to constantly churn out crit-stars like candy, but also build NP ridiculously fast. But outside of those two, I never really experimented with other Quick servants, and you need at least 3-4 consistent servants with similar attributes to form a solid team.

So the ultimate questions became: Which servants have both high star gen AND NP gain? And is it possible to build a solid Quick-NP team? To answer my own questions, I made more charts :)

# How to use this chart:

Unlike the [NP damage comparisons chart](https://www.reddit.com/r/grandorder/comments/4xdn92/np_damage_comparisons_v2_now_with_grail_ascensions/), interpreting this data is very much not straightforward. What this chart does is present the NP gain and star gen of INDIVIDUAL servant cards, then adds them up to give you a total value that can be used to compare to other servants. As a result, this gives you a general overall idea of what the average gains are of each servant, which is useful when you are trying to build on the principal of consistency. That said, you should NOT use these charts as a primary way to choose between two servants. There are many, many other factors that you must take into account when building your team, specifically the card patterns, active buff skills, and even the NP gain and star gen of the servant’s NP (something that I have not included in this chart).

Just because one servant has a higher average NP gain than another doesn’t mean it will gain NP faster in scenarios where the human factor is involved. QAAAB Casters, for example, will always gain NP faster due to the human Master being able to pick cards and build an Arts Chain, which gives each servant a flat +20% NP (a number that is significantly greater than the NP gain from individual Arts cards). Conversely, a QQQAB Assassin will also generally give you more crit stars due to a higher chance of letting you build a Quick Chain, which gives a flat +10 crit stars for the next turn. Other factors to consider is also the strength of the servant and their NP (remember, the goal is to deal both high crit damage and high NP damage), as well as the class triangle (you don’t want a full team of Assassins).

Bottom line is, unless you are specifically trying to build/theorycraft a Quick-NP team, this chart will only be of use to you as a quick reference/lookup chart. If you are wanting to try out a Quick-NP team and discover the next new meta, this is the post for you.

# How to read/understand this chart:

For sake of space, I have used abbreviations. Here are the descriptions of each column, see the spreadsheet for details on the formulas used:

* * = star/rarity
* Q/A/B-NP = NP gain for Quick/Arts/Buster cards – each 1 unit represents 1% of NP gain (game rounds down)
* Q/A/B-* = Star gen for Quick/Arts/Buster cards – each 1 unit represents 1 star generated (game rounds down)
* Total NP = numerical sum of the individual card NP gains, multiplied by their card count
* Total Star = numerical sum of the individual card star gens, multiplied by their card count
* Percent NP = this servant’s Total NP as a percentage of the highest Total NP of all servants in the table
* Percent Star = this servant’s Total Star as a percentage of the highest Total Star of all servants in the table
* Percent Overall = the average of Percent NP and Percent Star, with both values weighed equally

For comparison purposes, you want to look at the Percent columns.
For calculational purposes, you want to look at the raw values (or the spreadsheet directly)
Unless you want to see specifics though, I **strongly, strongly** recommend that you just look at the Plotted Graph image. It is much, much easier to process and understand.

# Calculation Notes:

* NP gain is calculated based on the base NP gain, the number of hits for that card, and passive card modifiers (active buffs not included)
* NP gain numbers are for the 2nd position card, with the assumption that the first card is an Arts card (from another servant)
* Star gen is calculated based on the base star gen, the number of hits for that card, and passive crit gen increase modifiers (active buffs not included)
* Star gen numbers are for the 2nd position card, with the assumption that the first card is a Quick card (from another servant)
* Active skills that apply percent modifiers (card, NP gain, star gen) are multiplied in by their percent increase * number of turns / cooldown
* Active skills that apply flat increase (NP gain, stars) are added to the total columns, also divided by their cooldown
* Active skills that buff targets are applied on self
* Active skills are assumed lvl 10
* Passive NP regen traits (from Avengers) are added to the total column
* Jekyll and Hyde have separate entries for their two forms
* Iskandar uses his post-patch NP gain value
* Miyamoto Musashi’s Fifth Form A skill is not calculated in – if it were used, it would effectively double the NP gen and star gain for that 1 turn from every card
* James Moriarty’s The Extremity of Spiderwebs A++ is not calculated in as it’s demerit is the loss of crit stars

Here is a nice and easy to process, visual graph showing all the below data with their Total NP Gain and Total Star Gen values plotted. I **strongly** recommend you take a look at this first before trying to read the below data chart.